Views and news about the brews. Unique and relevant information for coffee professionals and enthusiasts.

Apologies for the short one this week, I’ve been guiltily enjoying a week off the grid and haven’t kept up to date! That said, these two companies are doing some stellar work and you should be keeping an eye on them.

Delicious Instant Coffee

Kalle Freese, oft Finnish Barista Champion and all round nice guy, has packed up shop and moved to San Fran to start an exciting new company: Sudden Coffee. He’s taking delicious specialty coffee and turning it into instant coffee.

By all accounts, it’s not bad.

I shouldn’t need to mention the potentials for a business like this. But here’s a few:

Coffees would be always in season (Kenyas in November?!)

Super accessible to anyone with hot water

Massively scalable

Much more efficient than traditional brewing (pending Kalle’s extraction process)

This could create an even bigger splash for specialty than Maxwell’s coffee pods project I linked you to last week. The reason being, is that there’s many many companies with the IP and uber-expensive equipment to turn coffee into instant, all they need is to buy specialty roasts and potentially change their extractions. Whether Kalle can outrun these incumbents is yet to be seen, but I’m certain there’ll be more than one player in this space very shortly.

Keep an eye out for their short-run batches of coffees - available at Sudden Coffee

(I really wish he called it Freese Dried but whatever)

Maybe The Best Made Grinders On The Street

The grinder space is heating up right now. With Lyn Weber Workshops pushing out the EG-1 early this year, shady rumours of a Mythos 2, and Mahlkönig working towards an EK43 Barista model towards the end of the year, there’s a lot happening.

Titus Grinding is another one to add to the mix. Frank is doing some incredible work towards the oft-overlooked engineering aspects of coffee grinders. Based on the Versalab off-axis hanging-burr design, his grinders are walking out the door with radial run-outs of 0.02mm and metal coatings that make your iPhone look retro.

Check him out on the instagrams. Truly some drool-worthy grinder porn going on there.

Hot Chocolate Techniques Please!

I spent a disproportionate amount of time dialling in the hot chocolate at St Ali Jakarta. It’s a blend of two Valrhona couvertures melted and emulsified into milk with a little salt.

It reminded me: hot chocolate is really delicious. A lot more often than coffee is. (maybe my standards are lower because I’m not as knowledgable?)

Do you have a hot chocolate method or recipe you’re proud of? If enough people email me recipes (and photos!) I might collate them and turn it into a post! It has to be service-friendly and accurate please!

See You Next Week!

I promise you many more goodies next week. I’m back in Melbourne tomorrow and raring to go!